You have saved me from the shame of an open trial. I thank you
for this from the very depth of my heart. I have left you a
part of my own private fortune, that you may be a free man, free
as a poor man never can be. You can accept this present for it
comes from the hand of an honest man in spite of all. Yes, I
compelled my wife to go to her death after I had compelled her
to confess her shame to me, and I entered her lover’s house with
the knowledge I had forced from her. When I looked through the
keyhole and saw his false face before me, I murdered him in cold
blood. Then, that the truth might not be suspected, I continued
to play the sorrowing husband. I wore on my watch chain the ring
I had had made in imitation of the one my wife had worn. This
original ring of hers, her wedding ring which she had defiled,
I sent in the form of a bullet straight to her lover’s heart.
Yes, I have committed a crime, but I feel that I am less criminal
than those two whom I judged and condemned, and whose sentence I
carried out as I now shall carry out my own sentence with a hand
which will not tremble. That I can do this myself, I have you to
thank for, you who can look into the souls of men and recognise
the most hidden motives, you who have not only a wonderful brain
but a heart that can feel. You, I hope, will sometimes think
kindly of your grateful